Sanfall Interactive said that there was increased pressure and expectations on the studio after the success of Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 won Game of the Year at The Game Awards 2025
Photo Credit: Kepler Interactive/ Sandfall Interactive
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 developer Sandfall Interactive experienced critical and commercial success with its debut game in 2025, sweeping The Game Awards with a record nine wins, including Game of the Year. The French independent studio is now looking ahead to its next project and says it already has “some great ideas” which it is “excited to explore”.
In a recent interview with Edge Magazine (via GamesRadar) Sandfall Interactive chief operating officer and production director François Meurisse said that the studio could do “great stuff” with its next game with the five years of experience of making Expedition 33 behind it.
Meurisse admitted that developers at Sandfall were feeling “a bit of pressure” from fans over the next game, but “it's not so important to us.”
“We'll have time to get really focused into the next game. We have some great ideas we're so excited to explore, and we don't start from the same point. The team already has five more years of experience. So maybe we can do some great stuff,” Meurisse told Edge magazine in an interview for issue 419.
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 features turn-based combat
Photo Credit: Kepler Interactive/ Sandfall Interactive
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33's lead writer Jennifer Svedberg-Yen also said that the studio would ultimately work on a game it wanted to make rather than trying to please fans. Svedberg-Yen admitted that the studio was feeling the weight of expectations following the success of Expedition 33 — “we have a lot of fans now, and they have certain expectations and certain feelings towards the game.”
“Creatively, we've always let our North Star be our own personal taste in terms of what we think is cool, what it is we enjoy and want to see. I've seen too many TV shows and books be swayed trying to please a lot of people, and in the process you end up losing the heart of what's there,” she said in the interview. “So [we] feel like we need to trust our instincts and continue to trust the vision behind the studio.”
Sandfall Interactive has not decided upon its next project, and its second game is likely some ways off from even entering the pre-production phase. The studio has not shared details about the kind of game it wants to make next.
The studio found widespread critical acclaim and commercial success with its debut game, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, a narrative-focussed turn-based RPG inspired by Final Fantasy games. The game, which was released on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series S/X on April 24, 2025, was one of the highest rated games of last year.
At The Game Awards 2025 in December, Expedition 33 won a record nine awards, including top honours like Game of the Year, Best Game Direction, Best Narrative, Best Independent Game, and Best RPG.
The RPG's sales crossed 4.4 million units in less than six months of launch. Expedition 33 has sold over 5 million copies as of October 2025.
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